In recent times I've read many ill-informed reports about XML support in Office 2003 especially Word 2003. The first article in this wave was How Open is the New Office? written by Joe Wilcox of C|Net which I refuted in a diary shortly afterwards but still managed to start an Internet meme (Microsoft Office XML is not 'open') which eventually was picked up by Slashdot and manifested itself in the same joke over and over and over again.

While browsing online I caught another article by Joe Wilcox about XML support in Office 2003 in Business Week which seemed to contain similar misapprehensions as his article from December of last year. The quote from the article which I am specifically going to tackle in this post is

"Microsoft has yet to disclose the proprietary dialect--or underlying schema--of the XML"

This particular meme has been spreading amongst tech journalists and I've seen it in Internet Week, PC Magazine, and the Register. Meme squashing done below.

 

 

It must be fun being a rapper. What other job do you have where your kids listen to the radio and ask you 'Why is Ja Rule some punk dissing you?' and not only do you get to respond to with a diss of your own but get paid in the process. That's like getting paid for being in an online flame war. Money for nothing, I want my MTV.

Speaking of MTV I saw another episode of Punk'd last night and I thing the show is pure genius. Candid camera for the MTV generation.

Thoughts on organizing a roadtrip to Applied XML DevCon West, followup to the Nigerian presidential elections posts, and how MSDN folks are handling feedback on their recent redesign.

Poll: Which Talk Would You Prefer To See At Applied XML DevCon?

 

 

This is going to be a fun day. I have 48 bugs I have to resolve by the end of the today.

Lots of rambling about cars, XML, transformer costumes and a blog that epitomizes the current weblog fad below.

Poll: Favorite Season of the Year?

 

 

Nigerian Opposition Party Rejects Obasanjo Win

 

 

1. In Warri where fighting is going on, there were no elections, but there was[sic] results.
   
   
2. Violence, Intimidation, Electoral Fraud in Rivers, Bayelsa
   
   
3. ThisDay Presidential Exit Poll

 

 

Chris Hollander recently posted two entries on why he thinks specifications are unnecessary for XML vocabularies due to the existence of a perfectly fine language for defining the structure of XML documents. Now even if one ignores the fact that if one wants to point to a perfectly fine language for defining the structure of XML documents they'd actually point here instead of here, I still see some issues with Chris's reasoning.

A schema (small 's') describes the structure or model of some data in much the same way a grammar does. However it is unlikely that one would proclaim that having a copy of the ANSI C grammar makes having a copy of K & R redundant or that having a database's schema is all that is needed to build an application that utilzes the information in the database.

More exposition below.

 

 

Surprise, surprise, there are still US government officials resigning over the US government's actions in the War on Iraq. It seems they are pissed the US didn't have any plans for securing the priceless historical artifacts in Baghdad after winning the city. If only the people involved in the military planning had played Civilization they would have realized anarchy occurs when you switch governmental styles then made appropriate plans.

Read below for a couple of comments about various blogs I've seen on XSLT and XML in the past few days.

 

 

Shortly after deciding to go with a rear wheel drive vehice I stumbled upon an article on MSN's Slate entitled Why Front Wheel Drive Sucks - And why rear-wheel drive is coming back. I've only had my car for a few days but I already have fallen in love with the way it handles and think it hugs the road a lot better than front wheel drive vehicles I've driven in the past. The Slate article gives a number of technical reasons for the gut feeling I've had that my rear-wheel drive car was a better drive than front wheel drive vehicles I've driven in the past.

Further thoughts on loose vs. tight coupling, a cannibalistic rapper, XML geekery and an answer to a question asked in a previous diary

Poll: Where is the US Going to Invade Next?

 

 

So I'm being an insomniac and sitting here watching XXX. I should have watched the movie before buying the DVD, so far it's been just as peurile and illogical as the first Vin Diesel movie I saw; the Fast and the Furious.

My birthday is next month, I'm considering getting myself a couple of martial arts movies as a present. I definitely want Iron Monkey and Shaolin Soccer added to my collection in the next few weeks. If some caring soul picked up a TiVo for me, I wouldn't say no either. You know who you are.

While browsing RSS feeds in past few days, a couple of coworkers and I have puzzled at some of the weird opinions on using XML that show up in various blogs. Thoughts on one of the more interesting opinions on using XML I've stumbled upon in the past week.

 

 

This is a follow up to my How Not To Design An Extensible API post from last night. In response to my post Simon Fell stated that he doesn't see much difference between a system where XML is passed around as a mechanism for exchanging data and one where objects that implement a particular interface are passed around. The difference is that one is a tightly coupled system while the other is loosely coupled.

More comments below.